​Each day when I pick my kids up from school, the first question I ask them is “What happened on the playground today?” As a playful spirit and former PE teacher, I am always curious about the most fun parts of the school day and what they learned from it. Growing up, I loved school. I loved learning new concepts and meeting new people, but no matter what grade I was in, recess was my favorite part of the day, then PE, and then after-school athletics as I got older. There was something about physical activity during the school day that made sitting in a desk somewhat bearable. Fast forward a couple of decades and you’ll find across the country, there is a growing trend to cut back on the amount of time children spend at recess for more serious pursuits like standardized test preparation. What happened? And if these are top-down policy changes, what can parents do to combat the fallout of this epidemic?
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I used to believe that getting married and becoming “some man's wife” was the ultimate betrayal of my feminism. I admit, I was a bit misguided and jaded in my teens and twenties. I think my own experience witnessing the failed marriage of my parents and the old school style of coupling between my grandparents, led me to believe that women never found wholeness or freedom when joined matrimoniously. I witnessed what I had interpreted to be, generations of women withering in the shadows of their husbands, Bibles in hands to reassure them that their female ego was wrong. I saw marriage as this parasitic symbiotic agreement between the host and her husband. But somehow at twenty-three I found myself newly wed and confused about how the process worked. I had betrayed myself and all the feminists I respected so highly. So when my marriage didn’t work out, I can’t say I was all that surprised or upset.​

This is a love story set to the soundtrack of “Lemonade”. As I watched Beyoncé's movie for the 100th time, I witnessed the story of my own marriage unfold before me. It was all crystal clear, and the events that led me back to my husband made me realize I was not alone in my conclusion.